We photographed Ericka when she was a sex worker. This is her life nowIsolde Raftery // KUOWJUN 4, 2018

In 2015, photographer Mike Kane met Ericka, a sex worker on Aurora Avenue North in Seattle. Ericka was selling sex to support her heroin and meth addiction, and she was so weak she believed she could be dead within a year. She was estranged from her three young daughters and spent many nights on the street.

“White male: roughly 70 years old, goes by name Thomas-driving a red 4 door suv picked up woman in Lynnwood but frequents aurora avenue as well. Was calm at first but eventually got angry, was slamming on the breaks and when woman yelled for him to stop- he parked and tried to strangle her and punched her, then raped her.”

This recently updated “Bad Date List” posting and handfuls of condoms in assorted colors greet dozens of women and men as they step into the Aurora Commons, a day shelter near the intersection of Aurora Avenue and North 90th Street.

To share space is to give of something we do not own, are not entitled to and which has been gifted to us. I did not learn this on my own, as on my own I am selfish and entitled, believing I own the space I inhabit. If, like the proverbial lesson in kindergarten, I have learned to share, it is because the people at the Aurora Commons have taught me how.

How a Coffee House Became a Haven on North AuroraElizabeth Sharpe // SEATTLE WEEKLYFebruary 23 2016

Ericka Frodsham scrapes the last of the soup from an enormous stockpot into a yogurt container without a lid. It is after 9 p.m. and Aurora Commons is technically closed. But without a home, Frodsham is loath to leave.

She slides the topless container into a Ziploc bag. Her fingers are darkened, swollen, her nails filthy. Dozens of silver bangles around her wrist don’t so much as tinkle. She dons a man’s thick sweatshirt from the closet of giveaway clothes.